FAA Approves Boeing Plan To Fix 787 Batteries

By Joan Lowy and Joshua Freed – All Nippon Airways, the largest customer for the plane so far, said in a statement from Japan that it saw the FAA decision as significant progress. “Putting safety as the first priority, we hope to get the planes back in the air as soon as possible,” the airline said.

The airliner’s troubles have raised concerns that the FAA has ceded too much responsibility for evaluating the safety of new aircraft to manufacturers. To save manpower, the FAA designates employees at aircraft makers and their subcontractors to conduct the safety testing of new planes. Boeing’s battery testing concluded that short-circuiting wouldn’t lead to a fire and that the chance of a smoke event was one in every 10 million flight hours.